“They won’t catch you,” he presses. “How could they ever catch you?”
“He knows I won’t run as long as he has her.”
“Oh Christ. What is she to you, anyway? Is she worth your life? How can one person be worth your whole life?” It’s a question he already knows the answer to. “Fine. Do what you want. Like I care. Like it matters.”
“That’s the lesson they taught us, Razor. What matters and what doesn’t. The one truth at the center of all the lies.”
He picks up his rifle and slings it over his shoulder. He kisses me on the forehead. A blessing. A benediction. Then he picks up the lamp and walks unsteadily to the doorway, the watchman, the caretaker, the one who does not rest or grow weary or falter. He leans against the open door, facing the night, and the sky above him burns with the cold light of ten thousand pyres marking the time ticking down.
“Run,” I hear him say. I don’t think he’s speaking to me. “Run.”
83
ON THE EIGHTH DAY, the chopper returns for us. I let Razor help with my clothes, but besides a couple of sore ribs and a pair of weak legs, the twelve arrays collectively known as Ringer are fully operational. My face has completely healed; not even a scar remains. On the ride back to the base, Razor sits across from me, studying the floor, looking up at me only once. Run, he mouths. Run.
White land, dark river, the helicopter banks hard, swooping around the control tower at the airfield, close enough for me to see a tall, solitary figure behind the tinted windows. We set down in the same spot from which we took off, another circle complete, and Razor puts his hand on my elbow to guide me into the tower. On the ride to the top, his hand wraps briefly around mine.
“I know what matters,” he says.
Vosch stands at the other end of the room with his back toward us, but I can see his face reflected dimly in the glass. Beside him stands a burly recruit gripping a rifle to his chest with the desperation of someone hanging over a ten-mile-deep gorge by a shoestring. Sitting next to the recruit, wearing the standard-issue white jumpsuit, is the reason I’m here, my victim, my cross, my charge.
Teacup starts to get up when she sees me. The big recruit puts his hand on her shoulder and pushes her back down. I shake my head and mouth to her, No.
The room is quiet. Razor is on my right side, standing slightly behind me. I can’t see him, but he’s close enough that I can hear him breathing.
“So.” Vosch draws out the word, a prelude. “Have you solved the riddle of the rocks?”
“Yes.”
I see him smile tightly in the dark glass. “And?”
“Throwing a very big rock would defeat the purpose.”
“And what is the purpose?”
“For some to live.”
“That begs the question. You’re better than that.”
“You could have killed all of us. But you didn’t. You’re burning the village in order to save it.”
“A savior. Is that what I am?” He turns to face me. “Refine your answer. Must it be all or nothing? If the goal is to save the village from the villagers, a smaller rock would have achieved the same result. Why a series of attacks? Why the ruses and deceit? Why engineer-enhanced, delusional puppets like Evan Walker? A rock is so much more simple and direct.”
“I’m not sure,” I confess. “But I think it has something to do with luck.”
He stares at me for a long moment. Then he nods. He seems pleased. “What happens now, Marika?”
“You’re taking me to his last known location,” I answer. “You’re dropping me in to track him down. He is an anomaly, a flaw in the system that can’t be tolerated.”
“Really? And how could one poor human pawn pose any danger whatsoever?”
“He fell in love, and love is the only weakness.”
“Why?”
Beside me, Razor’s breath. Before me, Teacup’s uplifted face.
“Because love is irrational,” I tell Vosch. “It doesn’t follow rules. Not even its own rules. Love is the one thing in the universe that’s unpredictable.”
“I would have to respectfully disagree with you on that point,” Vosch says. He looks at Teacup. “Love’s trajectory is entirely predictable.”
He steps close, looming over me, a colossus cut from flesh and bone with eyes clear as a mountain lake boring all the way down to the bottom of my soul.
“Why would I need you to track him or anyone down?”
“You lost the drones that monitor him and all the others like him. He’s off the grid. He doesn’t know the truth, but he knows enough to cause serious damage if he isn’t stopped.”
Vosch raises his hand. I flinch, but his hand comes down on my shoulder, which he squeezes hard, his face glowing with satisfaction. “Very good, Marika. Very, very good.”
And beside me, Razor whispers, “Run.”
His sidearm explodes beside my ear. Vosch backpedals toward the window, but he isn’t hit. The big recruit goes down to his knees, ramming the recoil pad of his rifle against his shoulder, but he isn’t hit, either.
Razor’s target was the smallest thing that is the sum of all things, his bullet the sword that severs the chain that bound me.
The impact hurls Teacup backward. Her head smacks into the counter behind her; her stick-thin arms fly into the air. I whip to my right, toward Razor, in time to see his chest blown apart by the kneeling recruit’s round.
He pitches forward and my arms come up instinctively, but he falls too fast. I can’t catch him.